Ivan Doppelganger’s Study

  Veronique ended up saying nothing, knowing there wasn’t a way she could lie her way through it yet she had to say something.

  “I thought you wanted to learn” Doppelganger had exclaimed with disappointment “I don’t appreciate my time getting wasted, I guess you will learn to keep your mana under control all by yourself” he made his way to the door, fully intending on canceling their lesson all together.

  She couldn’t allow it, she needed him to gain full control and make sure no accidents occurred.

  Sure now it didn’t seem an issue and the tea was keeping her mana under control, but what if it became one as grew older? What if the tea stopped working on her or she couldn’t take it anymore?

  She would never forgive herself if she hurt someone or her dogs.

  “Wait!” Veronique stopped him “it’s hard to explain” she ended up saying, for once words weren’t flowing out of her mouth, the consequences she could be facing were far too great and severe to even form them.

  “Try” Ivan turned back to her and urged her on

  Veronique knew that if she tried to then she would be labeled as crazy in a second flat, then she noticed Hanging Jaw was luring behind her and made an impulsive move as she made a grab for its bony wrist while gathering a lot of her mana in her hands.

  During the fraction of second she had been aware of what she was trying to do she had expected to end up making a fool of herself, but she had actually ended up holding on something solid.

  She looked at Hanging Jaw out of genuine surprise ‘its was not an hallucination, I was right its part of my skill’

  “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!” the teacher sudden yelling broke her wonder “ROCK SLIDE!” a fist sized boulder had formed in midair and was thrown right at poor Hanging Jaw, who seemed to panic but Veronique was quick to let go of it and dodge herself, the boulder passed harmlessly through Hanging Jaw who was protecting its head looking terrified

  “Hey you almost hit me too!” she protested

  “Wait where did it go?!” Ivan exclaimed looking around like an hound on a hunt, another boulder readily formed floating on his palm

  “So you saw it too?” Veronique had asked a bit taken back at another confirmation that hers weren’t mere hallucinations

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “How could anyone miss that thing?!” Ivan lightly shouted out “Now where is it?”

  “It left” Veronique lied, wondering how he would react if she told him that there were way more all around them.

  “Then I will have to scrounge through the whole estate to capture such threat! Walking corpses, such things hadn’t been heard about since the Circles!” Doppelganger declared with determination and pure academic curiosity

  “…really?” Veronique echoed pale in the face, now she knew that revealing her probable second Skill wasn’t a good idea at all

  “Yes, did you know it was said that it was a monster at the head of a hoard of rotting corpses that ended up wiping out most of humanity?” he had told her with glee

  “Miss Hawkings didn’t say it happened like that” Veronique had pointed out

  “Well of course she didn’t, she must have taught you the most credited theory that put the Undead as unwilling servants of the Labyrinth, but there is another that says Monsters had rushed us from all sides and overwhelmed us” he explained with glee, then his expression soured “the survivors didn’t keep a clean log of events, so it’s a bit hard to say what really happened and what didn’t”

  “I see” Veronique faked interest while internally panicking ‘maybe he didn’t notice I made it appear’

  “Wait…was it you Veronique that conjured it?” of course she wasn’t that lucky, Ivan had let the boulder crumble to dust “Was that what you were trying to explain to me?” or maybe she could be lucky in her misfortune.

  ‘If I play this right, I won’t have to explain the dreams’ she had thought

  “I told you it was complicated” Veronique had said, twisting the events a little “So I tried to show you”

  “Show me?” Doppelganger had repeated

  “Yes, I have seen it around me for a while, I thought I was crazy then I noticed Madame Luise was keeping my second Skill hidden for some reason, so I started to suspect it had something to do with it” Veronique wasn’t fully lying when she said this, but she spoke about it so fast the man barely followed along

  “It, so it’s only one” it was the one thing he could catch on and ask for clarification

  “Yea…Hanging Jaw just follows me around” Veronique didn’t want him to know there were more then she could count around her all the time ‘better stay far away from the whole horde of corpses thing’

  “Hanging jaw?” he questioned

  “Yea, I gave it a nickname” she admitted

  “And you couldn’t make this Hanging Jaw appear before?” Doppelganger seemed genuinely curious about it

  “No, I only did what you taught me to do with the marble” Veronique had explained “I wasn’t even sure it would work”

  “Do it again” he told her eagerly, at that the redhead turned ready to repeat…but as soon as she did Hanging Jaw backed away from her

  “Actually I can’t” Veronique had to admit a bit sheepish about it

  “What why?” Ivan sounded like a kid that was denied a toy, his shoulders had even slumped out of disappointment

  “I think you kind of scared it off” the redhead gave an hypothesis, but it could be as likely that they didn’t like what she had done

  “Damn it” the instructor had cursed

  “I sure they will be less skittish in the future, but we could just do our normal lesson” Veronique had proposed then had the stroke of genius to add “just to not waste time?”

  “Fine, start practicing with your Artifact, then we will try to cast Hover again” Doppelganger ended up agreeing

  Veronique nodded and eagerly did so, this time she tried to make her mana spread out all over the labyrinth toy with the intention of only letting a little more sink into the marble to make it move, then she focused on keeping that mana in place till Doppelganger decided to come over to her about a quarter of hour later

  “I see the marble is barely visible, want to try to move it?”

  “Sure” Veronique did so and the marble did move a bit more then last time…however she ended up letting go of the Artifact because it got scalding hot.